


The Wrath of Beatrice, Queen of the World, Must be Faced With an Apology

by nutellabythespoon



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: AU- smartphones don't exsist, Canon divergence- after Hello Again (kind of instead of picnic??)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-21 01:59:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2450471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutellabythespoon/pseuds/nutellabythespoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bea and Ben find out about the love gods, because Bea wants to delete all the videos of hero and Claudio, which gives Hero some thoughts about taking control of her own life. These two things kind of intermingle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wrath of Beatrice, Queen of the World, Must be Faced With an Apology

**Author's Note:**

> (let's pretend smartphones don't exist. whoops. also the computers thing is 100% based off my school computers those kind of things totally happen all the time. even if it seems unlikely.)

Beatrice had been thinking about it for a while, but had thought that is was probably best to just not mention the subject at all. Plus, there had been more important things going on. But, now, after Hero had put up that video _with Claudio,_ which she still didn't understand, she thought it was finally OK to bring it up. She didn't know what exactly would be the best way to go about it though, and that's how she ended up awkwardly waiting in Hero’s room, with their youtube page open on her laptop, like an intervention. And when Hero walked in, Bea didn't exactly know how to say it in the easiest way. Hero must have noticed the confusion on her face.

 

"Ummm, hello, Bea, what's going on? Is everything OK?"

 

"Hero, I already have the page open and I'm really tempted to just do it, which I know is horrible because they're yours too, so I guess I'm asking your permission to delete the videos of you and Claudio. And other videos, too. A whole bunch of them, really." Hero processed then information, and then sighed.

 

"Please stop acting like I'm some fragile baby who will break at the sight of my previous relationship. No, Beatrice, I see where you're coming from, but no. Leave it. What, you're just going to delete every video where I mention Claudio? Really?"

 

\-----------------

 

Hero meant it, she really did. It wasn't her foremost motivation, so, for all ethical intents, it wasn't true. But she had to stop convincing herself it was a lie. She had to stop convincing herself that she was OK with anyone else deciding what was OK for her, even Beatrice. Especially Beatrice. She wasn't really all that into to lying anyways, so, to her relief, she felt better after she accepted it. It had come out as a precaution, because _obviously_ she couldn't have Beatrice tampering with the videos of her and Claudio _. Obviously._ Allowing that was tempting more fate than even gods could control. _Ha._ She laughed at her own stupid joke.

 

"What's so funny?" Uh-oh. She had to think fast. Explain the humour in this obviously serious discussion, and _get that laptop as far away from Bea as possible._ Kill two birds with one stone. Not that she was condoning any acts of bird murder _. I literally just used the same joke twice. In my head. It was literally just the same joke. This shouldn't be funny. Stop it, Hero! Think quick!_

 

"Um, nothing, I'm just remembering what happened at 11 o'clock this morning." Beatrice checked her watch, confused.

 

"It's 10:58. What are you talking about?"

 

" _This."_ She grabbed the laptop and bolted out of the room, like a little kid playing tag. Then she ran down the stairs into the basement, and opened the safe in the closet. She closed and locked the door, just in time for Beatrice to jump the last step and yell "HERO! What are you doing?"

 

Hero quickly got out her phone and sent a text to Balthazar. They were going to have to get their act together and take some _serious_ precautions.

 

\----------------------

 

"Oh, I completely forgot, you won't believe what happened. Yesterday, _Hero locked my laptop in the safe_. I didn't even know my cousins’ house had a safe, so no, before you ask, I don't know the code, obviously, and now I effectively don't have a computer." Beatrice hurumphed and fell onto Ben's bed. She had been having a perfectly nice Sunday afternoon of hanging out _and stuff_ with Ben. But, she had just remembered the weird scene from the day before and was all unsettled.

 

"It's not just the lack of tumblr access that's bothering me." She explained what she was going to do before the incident. "She sounded pretty angry with me. I'm kind of shaken up by it actually." She stared at Ben for a few moments, hoping he sensed her confusion. "You don't- you don't think I treat her like a fragile baby, do you? I don't want her to be angry with me." She looked so sincere and torn, and Ben didn't know exactly how to respond.

 

"I don't know Beatrice, I agree with you about the videos- but no, on the other hand- if you're this worried- it's probably best- actually it's definitely necessary- you should talk to her. I'm not her, so I can't really help you much with that. But, actually, promise you'll talk to her about this soon OK? If we've learned anything, it's that communication is key." He made a finger-snappy-pointing motion, but Beatrice couldn't really see the humour in those lessons, or in how they had learned those lessons. But, she smiled none-the-less. She was so thankful to have Ben there to say it all to, and- wait…. Did he just? Did he just say he agreed with her about the videos? _Stop being such a sap, Beatrice! Stupid love, always distracting me from more pressing issues!_

 

“You just said you agree with me. About the videos. What are we doing sitting here when you have an unlocked laptop lying around your house?" He looked clueless for a second, then made a face.

 

“Really, Bea? Did you ignore everything I just said? Obviously the idea bothers Hero, I wouldn't just let you use my computer to worsen the issue." Beatrice kind of knew he would say that, and, in the long run, it was probably for the best. _But still._ She hated the idea that all those videos were still up there for anyone to see. Especially the makeup video. And oh, god, she had never watched it, _of course_ , but there was that makeup bloopers video. It made her so uncomfortable that it was still there, still existed. She couldn't help but reflect on how petty she'd been, its sheer existence bothering her before. She had an actual _reason_ to be offended by it now. A slight case of a girl who cried wolf.

 

"Plus, I don't even have my laptop here. Balth came round last night, saying he wanted to download some music scoring software or something on it? I'm not really sure, but he said his computer was too old for the new update, and it had just gotten released, and how he's going to be out of town for the next week, and…"

 

Ben was still talking but Beatrice was kind of not listening. Not intentionally of course, but she was kind of distracted by the fact that _clearly something was going on._

 

\-------------------

 

The next day at school everyone was acting very fishy, as Beatrice had suspected they would. No one seemed to find it strange that Hero Duke had locked up her cousin's computer for no reasons other than a silly prank. That's what Hero had said the reason was, and Beatrice guessed she believed it. It's not as if Hero's bitterness in their tiny conversation would make her angry enough to take on such an active maneuver and then passively brush it off; that just didn't make sense. And that's what was so weird. She was definitely going to talk to Hero that night. _Definitely._

 

But first, she had more pressing matters to attend to. She bolted to the library at the start of lunch, the only place with computers that she was able to _use._ She entered the dungeon (their library was its own floor, the basement) and claimed the computer at the far edge. The school computers were anything but technologically advanced. They could only use Internet Explorer, and had Microsoft Office 2003. _Two-thousand three._ Also, they were just generally shitty and slow.

 

She tried her best to push out all forms of guilty conscience from her mind. It wasn't that she was trying to bother Hero, but at this point she just wanted to get on their youtube page to prove that she could. Something was up; their friends obviously were trying to keep her away from the internet.

 

She tapped her fingers and sighed as she waited for the computer to boot up. She was trying to figure out why they would be doing this at all, but she honestly had no clue. What worried her was that she wasn't sure if it was a joke- something to not be worried about, or something serious. If she had some idea of what the _mood_ of this was supposed to be, she could deal with it better.

 

 _Ah, finally._ And after an excruciating wait for the internet to boot up, "youtube dot com slash nothing much to do vlog." _Ok, let's get down to business._ The mouse kind of lagged, so though she clicked when it _looked_ like the cursor was on video manager, she got taken to Ursula's channel.

 

"Fucking school computers." Bea wasn't the type to have patience for this kind of stuff. She simultaneously moved the cursor to the back button and aggressively clicked the mouse.

 

That was when the computer froze. A big pop-up read "Internet Explorer has been overworked. Please wait as we reload the page."

 

"Jesus fucking dammit." She motioned hitting her head against the back of her chair, but seeing at they were small school chairs, her head didn't hit anything and she almost fell over backwards. She caught herself and groaned. _I'm so done right now._ She was so busy squeezing her eyes shut while drowning in her sorrows (it really wasn't helping that she was just confused and exhausted with everyone, right now) that she didn't notice, about a minute and a half later, that the page had loaded.

 

"Ok, I think we're done here," played from the speakers. She knew that voice. She hated that voice.

 

She opened her eyes and went to pause the video. She'd sworn she'd never watch this video, and now here she was, ignoring her cousin’s wishes and acting in spite. _Hah. I so had it coming._

 

The thing about pausing the video though, is that, as could probably be guessed by now, it didn't work. Instead of clicking the pause button, she had just skipped forward. She had accepted the fate that this was never going to work, and was about to just shut off the whole dinosaur, when she noticed that the buffering video had taken a new image.

 

_What the?_

 

This was also the moment that Ben had decided it was a good time to appear behind her.

 

\------------

 

"Hey, Bea, sorry I'm late, I was setting up a meeting for physics help. I didn't stand you up on our library date, I promise." He kissed the top of her head, and then looked at the computer.

"Really, Bea? We went over this. Don't tell me you're… wait, what video is this?" He didn't recognize this video, and though it was buffering, he could see that Pedro was talking, and everyone, literally, _everyone_ was sitting around.

 

Then he looked at the title.

 

"Bea? What is this?" She was being very odd, not responding at all. He walked in front of her and took in her expression. She started slowly shaking her head back and forth.

 

"I have… no idea…"

 

Ben was very curious about this video, and knew the dinosaur would do them no good, so he shut it off, took Bea by the arm, and marched upstairs. They walked straight to their history teacher's office and knocked on the door.

 

"Oh, if it isn't my _favourite_ students." Their history teacher wasn't being sarcastic or anything, he just had a strange sense of humour. He liked the two of them quite a bit, which is why Ben had chosen to go to his office over any other teachers'.

 

"Hey, sorry to bother you during lunch, but we were wondering if we could use your computer. We have that media studies project…" As Bea dug them into a large hole of lies, Ben was feeling more and more anxious to watch that video. _The Makeup Bloopers? What_? _Why was everyone sitting together? God, those school computers really are shit, I haven’t used them in forever._ Bea started walking in, so Ben assumed success (he wasn't sure exactly what this media project was, due to his zoning out, so he thought best to keep his mouth shut) and followed her. But, their teacher pointed at his laptop and walked out, telling them he was going out to get his lunch and he’d be back soon.

 

"So, let's solve the mystery of the what-the-actual-fuck-is-going-on makeup bloopers. Also, Ben," she typed in the address of Ursula's channel and turned to look at him, "physics help? Really? I spend like half my life helping you with physics. We're always doing the work together. Am I not good enough a tutor for you?" She was grinning with a fake-accusing stare, which did nothing stop Ben's defensive response.

 

"Yes, because we do so much _physics_ during our 'studying', for 1, and b) you know I need an actual teacher's help. Sadly."

 

"I know, I know, I'm just teasing- oh look, it's loaded. Ok, brace yourself." The video was doing the buffering thing at the beginning.

 

"um.. Bea, are there any actual makeup bloopers in this video. Because what you said before, about the videos, it still applies, to Hero, but also to you, and I don't know if-"

 

"Oh shut up, I'll be fine, it's starting."

 

\---------

 

They both made an instinctual gag at the beginning, which caused synchronized laughing, which in turn made Bea feel bad. The whole freaking point of this whole _thing_ she had been doing was that watching these videos would make her angry and upset. That's how she was supposed to be feeling. Instead she was laughing.

 

Her train of thought was interrupted by Pedro's voice.

 

They were confused.

 

Then they were more confused.

 

Then they were in denial.

 

And then they were angry.

 

"What the fuck? What the actual fuck? What the literal, actual, fuckity fuck fuck crap fucking hell Ben what the fuck." He wasn't nearly as eloquent.

 

"uuuhhhh"

 

\---------------

 

Hero was supposed to meet Meg and Ursula at the lunch table, but decided to go to the library and read instead. It was just one of those days.

 

She texted them, explaining the situation, as she dried her hair. _Annoying swim unit. Gym would be much, much butter if gross chlorine-y everything wasn't necessary to pass._ By the time she had dumped all her wet stuff in her locker, and made her way towards the library, it was already ten minutes into lunch. When she walked through the turn tables, the librarian waved hello.

 

"You're sister was in here before on the computers. She just left!"

 

Hero mumbled something like "she's not my sister but whatever you're not the first or last to make that mistake" but the librarian had turned her focused back to stamping books. Then, Hero's mind did a double take.

 

"Wait, Beatrice was here on the computers? What was she doing?" She hoped she didn't sound as anxious as she felt. They was no reasonable explanation to be so anxious about your 'sister' using a computer.

 

"She was on the internet, but she spent most of the time groaning and pulling her hands down her face." The librarian obviously thought this was strange, but for Hero, that was just typical Bea. _But helpful, I guess._ If she _had_ seen the videos she probably would have been yelling a slew of curse words, so it was probable she hadn't seen it. _She may have just been deleting the videos. She doesn't even know Ursula's password. Why would she be on her channel?_ Hero was trying to make herself be hopeful, and she wasn't quite sure if it was working.

 

That had been happening a lot recently.

 

She was just about to call Bea, to confirm her suspicions of ignorance to said video, when her phone started ringing. _This really cannot be a good sign._ It seemed that she had picked up before Bea noticed, and she heard Bea talking to someone else on the other end.

 

"No, Ben, I'm calm. Caaalm. Breeaattthiinng. I got this. Oh, she answered."

 

"Heeey, Bea, what's up??..." she put on a painfully over-casual voice, and hoped for the best.

 

"Oh, nothing really, just WONDERING WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS WRONG WITH ALL OF YOU." There was a long pause. _Maybe this is the part where Bea remembers she was going to be calm._ Then Hero realized it wasn't a rhetorical question.

 

"Umm, Beatrice, see, can we talk about this, umm, face to face? I pretty much don't have anything to say for myself, besides _we were totally right_ and you should probably be thanking me really. But, alas, the wrath of Beatrice, Queen of the World, must be faced with an apology. Where are you guys anyway?"

 

\----------------------

 

They were all sitting around the lunch tables, waiting for Pedro and Claudio.

 

First, just Hero had talked to Bea and Ben. Then they all went to talk to Ursula and Meg about it. Beatrice had preferred the former, as she had the quantitative advantage. She didn't respond too well to having three people against her two. But, she needed to talk to _everyone_ about it, so the un-advantageous math was going to have to be forgotten. They had decided as a group to call the guys over, and though it wasn't the _easiest_ idea, it was kind of necessary.

 

"Also, Hero, does this mean I can get my computer back? Unless... Are there more videos?! Please tell me not." There weren't any other videos on Ursula's channel that she knew she hadn't watched, but after this, she wouldn't be surprised. She was slowly processing it, and still in a form of shock and denial. Definitely angry, but was what more prominent was just _not believing it._

 

"No, Beatrice, no more videos, I promise."

 

"Ya, because I trust your word so much right now."

 

"Oh, they're coming."

 

"Wonderful. Like a family reunion, except everyone has _been plotting against two of us."_ This was going to be a dandy conversation. Beatrice gave her biggest stink eye, and tried to think over what she going to say. She knew they were going to apologize, but then try to convince her that they were right and that she and Ben should be thanking them. That seemed to be the general approach.

 

"Ya um, hello everyone." Bea raised her eyebrows. Crickets. "We know this isn't really helping with our…um…" Pedro looked like he was exhausting himself trying to find the right word. "…track record. But we're all," he motioned to the girls, "on the same blame with this one. I mean, we're sorry and all that, but really, it was good thing." _You're so fucking delusional, honestly. Just because it ended fine doesn't mean it was OK. All of them. They don't get it. They made us look like idiots and it was totally not cool._

 

"Ya, like, it was the best thing to come out of a bad situation, you know?" Hero pressed her lips together and looked down. God, Claudio was such an idiot; he apparently only had one line for all his apologies. And it was abhorrently terrible.On the bright side, Bea finally felt like she had accepted the situation and collected her thoughts.

 

"That doesn't matter though. You're just not getting that the outcome is irrelevant. You have to understand that regardless of the situation _now,_ what you guys did was, just, like, not cool on any moral levels and the outcome shouldn't let you forget that. Understanding the basic moral choices in your actions is necessary for taking responsibility and becoming a better person. Don't let the outcome let youbecome delusional."

 

Ben didn't really have anything to add, but he obviously still wanted to say something. "Ya, what she said, exactly. Not cool." He gave that serious disapproving look, and Bea was reminded that he could be serious when he had to be. She was infinitely grateful for that.

 

"Also, what, you thought we would never talk about over hearing those conversations? That we'd never bring it up with each other?"

 

"Well, we'd thought that would be later on when it wouldn't matter, not in, you know… current situations." Ursula tried to look all matter-of-fact, as she normally did, but Bea could tell she felt very unsure of how to proceed. Pedro looked like he was trying very hard to process everything Bea had said. Claudio, on the other hand, just looked like he didn't want to deal with this.

 

"If we…if we _get_ what you mean, that it was wrong, and all that, will you admit that we were right? To be fair, you guys _were_ being intolerable." Ben gave a shrug, a tiny surrender of a shrug, and Pedro smiled. "I mean, seriously, you've got to recognize that, right? You would have completely denied it had we mentioned it, so don't give any bullshit about 'just telling you to your face' because we tried. Oh, did we try."

 

Beatrice gave a small chuckle, remembering Hero statements that her Ben were more alike than she thought. And the many, very similar, instances. Meg chimed in, continuing Pedro's thought.

 

"Ya, like he's saying, you're lucky we didn't kidnap you. You guys really were _completely_ intolerable." The thought of Meg kidnapping them was just so absurd, and that mixed with their, stupid, insulting ways, caused them both to laugh. They caught each other’s eyes, and knew they were thinking the same thing.

 

"Hah, Ben, we were being pretty stupid, weren't we?"

 

"Yea, we sure were."

 

"And, we really should forgive our friends here. Once they get _why_ they won't do anything like it again."

 

"It was all in everyone's best interest, really."

 

"We can't stay mad at them. We have better things to focus on." She walked up to him so they were standing face to face. He gave a maniacal grin and responded.

 

"Ya, and in the end, they only have themselves to thank. They brought this upon themselves, really." He then effectively ended the back and forth by going in for the grossest, coupley-est kiss they could muster. The kind of kiss that would usually have sent Beatrice's gag reflex on red alert. But, she couldn't deny that is was, in fact, a generally positive experience. It was definitely their most serious kiss so far, and she felt her mind release all negative thoughts towards such type of kisses. From now on, she was definitely pro-making out, in all its forms and glory. Fortunately, everyone else didn't seem too happy about the arrangement.

 

"Oh, gross guys. Come off it." "I mean, they were right, we did totally bring this on ourselves." "But, look, they're _still_ going at it."

 

They then decided to have some more fun with it. To the point where everyone just left, leaving Bea, Ben and the now very much contaminated lunch table behind.

 

"Ha, we totally won that."

 

"Ya, it'll teach them not to mess with us. A star team. That's what they called us in the video, right? 'Team Blessed.' We _are_ a mother-fucking team."

 

\-------------

 

That night, Beatrice was all grin and smile. Hero was very happy about that, actually, as a happy Beatrice was a much-easier-to-deal-with Beatrice. She knocked on the door to her cousin's room.

 

"Come in, come in. Oh, wonderful cousin, darling Hero, what's up?" Bea then suddenly looked like she remembered something, something very important.

 

"Beatrice, I really want to talk to you about deleting the videos. We never really finished that conversation." Bea nodded.

 

"Ya, I was actually going to talk to you about that tonight. Well, I was planning on it. I got a little distracted." She held up her phone, and Bea's smile re-appeared. Then, the phone made the alert sound for a new text. Beatrice read it out.

 

"'Go talk to Hero about what we talked about yesterday. Like, asap.' Seems I wouldn't have been too distracted after all." They both laughed, and Hero felt a little relieved, knowing that Beatrice had at least acknowledged that there was an issue. It didn't even bother her that Bea had talked to Ben about it instead of just asking Hero herself. It made sense.

 

"When I made a fuss about deleting the video, I wasn't just covering up the love gods, I was serious. I've been thinking about it these past few days, and honestly, the whole "Hero's so sweet and innocent and fragile” thing is really pissing me off." Hero stopped to let Beatrice respond, but all Bea did was motion for Hero to continue. "I don't like how everyone's been deciding everything for me. Claudio deciding who I can hang out with, that I can't even walk alone to _get a fucking pizza._ The school deciding that I'm a slut, and then deciding I'm a broken doll. Do you know how many people have come up to me to see if I need help? 'Oh, poor baby, you must be so upset.' And then the faking sick thing, I never really wanted to do any of that. People view me like a wronged soul, but I'm not here to sit idly by and wait for everyone to repair me in their own way."

 

Hero wasn't sure if she was getting her exact message across. It wasn't just about people wanting to help her, she knew putting that down sounded rude. She scratched her head and let out a big breath. It was more than that. It was people expecting her to be angry because she's a person, and at the same time expecting her to be perfect and happy and forgiving because she's _Hero Duke._ She explained this to Bea, stumbling a bit, but serious and determined. It felt good to explain herself. She hadn't felt this in control of what she was saying in a long time. The more she talked, the more confident she got.

 

By the end of it, she may have had a few tears, and all of her anger was (for the first time) about and present, but she felt decidedly better.

 

\----------

 

Despite what people may think, Beatrice _was_ capable of listening to other people for an extended amount of time- as long as what they were saying was important or interesting. And what her cousin had been saying was both (the former being more relevant, obviously). Unlike the revelation from earlier in the day, it didn't come on slowly and needed time to process. It was a huge slap-in-the-face reality check. Hero had been abundantly clear; there was nothing hard to understand about it. Well, conceptually, anyways.

 

"Oh, Hero. I'm- I'm so sorry."

 

"Please don't apologize to me anymore- I'm sick of people saying they're sorry. I know you really are, and I'm happy about that, but I think I'm gonna go crazy if I hear it one more time." Beatrice didn't know how to respond to that. She understood where Hero was coming from, and she wanted to respect that, but she just didn't know. She didn’t know much about anything anymore. Everything had made sense up until this winter. There was a lot these past few months that she couldn't hold onto or be sure of.

 

She wasn't holding onto trusting all her friends, that was for sure. She wasn't holding onto Ben being the dick who hates her; he had become the dork who loves her. It was always a big part of her, being sure of everything. Being the one with the correct instincts and correct answers. She couldn’t hold onto her own identity anymore, in that respect.

 

Recently, things had begun to work themselves out- things that confused her had started to make sense. But through it all, there was always one thing she was sure of- Hero. She needed to be sure of something, and knowing that Hero was right kept her from going insane. And now, here she was, learning that all she thought she knew about her immediate world, every last drop of it, was born of some Beatrice-tinted delusion.

 

"This is good, Hero. This is good. This is just what we need." She sat up from her slouched position on the bed, and a sudden feeling of determination washed over her. She had been nodding, and she realized what she was saying yes to. She was accepting it, all of it. She got up and gave Hero a hug, a really big, warm bear hug. They stayed like that for a few minutes, laughing, and tearing up a bit, and when they finally broke apart, they gave each other wide smiles.

 

"You're amazing Hero, really, truly amazing. For one thing, you're really brave, for confronting me and risking my wrath- I'm not quite sure I could have done that myself- but on top of that you saw exactly what going on and you were able to be self-reflective and I can't even describe how thankful I am that you're my best friend. And I promise, from now on, that the wrath of Beatrice will be longer." Hero laughed, but Beatrice wasn’t joking. "No, I mean that in the most serious way possible. You shouldn't feel chained up from what you want to do from your supposed best friend. That's… That's actually pretty fucked up."

 

Hero nodded, accepting what her cousin said. "Thank you, for hearing, but also _listening_ to me. I appreciate it. A ton." The girls left the room, hand in hand, and headed down the stairs. "About dinner…"

 

Beatrice made a scrunched up face. "Oh ya, I forgot, Leo's out tonight. What are you feeling?"

 

Hero just shook her head and gave a little grin. "I ordered before. Pizza. With extra olives."


End file.
